The present invention relates generally to methods, devices and systems for fabricating nanoparticles, and more particularly to such methods, devices and systems that can be employed to generate polymeric nanoparticles.
A variety of methods are known for generating nanoparticles. In one such method, commonly known as nanoprecipitation or flash precipitation, a polymer solution comprising a polymer dissolved in a process solvent is brought into contact with another solvent (also known as anti-solvent) in which the process solvent is miscible but the polymer is not. As a result, the process solvent diffuses rapidly into the anti-solvent while the polymer aggregates into a plurality of nanoparticles.
The conventional nanoprecipitation processes, however, suffer from a number of shortcomings. For example, it is difficult to control predictably the average particle size and the size distribution of the generated nanoparticles. Further, many challenges exist in scaling up such processes to generate nanoparticles on a large scale.
Accordingly, there is a need for enhanced methods, devices and systems for generating nanoparticles.